It's a Holly Jolly Santa!

Aapko Christh Janam Din ki badhai

(Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in Hindi)



vintage clip

Today I want to have a little fun with the upcoming holidays,

and Santa Claus!

Today is my last day to get everything ready

and packed and in my van because

TOMORROW

starts my 2-day Craft Fair.

Yeah, you're probably tired of hearing about it, so let's get into some

Father Christmas

or

Grandfather Frost

or

Saint Nicholas

or

Santa Claus

or

There are many names that across the world are

attributed to the same basic character.

After this weekend I hope to get into some of the different

Santa Claus legends and stories from all over the world.

Not today!

This free clip art is SUPER to cut out!

Be careful with the really thin outline lines,

but he will look great when you mat him on a piece of red paper, won't he?

 

Take just a little bit more time, and you can put some silver paper

behind his belt buckle.  Add a little flesh-toned paper behind his face,

but be sure and leave the eyebrows alone.

 

 

A fun little puzzle to do on your lunch break, or to tuck into your kid's lunchbox:

a vintage crate label

Hi Mom and Dad in Santa Paula!

Here is a vintage paper puppet craft:

Trace the outlines, and have your kids color Santa in their favorite colors.

http://www.thevintageworkshop.com/

This picture is copyrighted I believe. Check on their website.

The Vintage Workshop has this great sign-up where you get one FREE image from their HUGE library of vintage images, per month.

I have enjoyed many of their free images.

They also carry way-cool items that you can use to make things with the images.

A few are -iron-on computer paper, fabric computer paper,

and tons of images, in really good groupings

or singles!

c.1909

Well, I'm off to count inventory,

finish my displays and display board

find my price tags (gggrrrrrrrr)

price and tag things

finish my price sheet cheat sheet for my helpers;

(I have 2 for Saturday! Yippee!)

www.girlontherocks.etsy

go to the bank

go to WalMart for picture stands and rubber cement

and then IF I have time

finish 2 more ABC books to sell

finish 10 ornament tags that need ribbon

wash tablecloths

find sheets are something to cover my tables Saturday night

get 3 Thank You cards ready for my 3 helpers

Call one helper to arrange transportation

clean up my sprawling mess in the family room,

flowing into the kitchen eating area

and piled in the dining room!

vintage Christmas record

Oh, I just better stop this blog and go do those things!!!

:0)

hugs,

inkspired

http://www.inkspired.etsy.com/

http://www.myinkspired.com/



The Language of Flowers - Water Lily

mambo

(Congo)

Today is Water Lily Day!

No, not official....but everything else seems to have a holiday....

so why not have Water Lily Day today?

http://www.wisdompaintings.com/

There are two flowers for the month of July.

The first is delphinium, or larkspur.

Check my older blogs in July for that feature.

The second flower is the water lily.



The water lily's 'discovery' by a white man

in the lagoons of South American jungles

made this beautiful flower known to the European world.

a pink water lily

Remains of tropical water lilies have been found in

European pre-Ice Age (according to Darwin fans) stratas.

Just a side note here:

Did you know that all the carbon testing, dating of ancient bones and objects, etc. is all based on Darwin's theories?

Very little of it can be proven as fact.

Mainstream scientists have started with a presumption,

and then made the data fit.

As anyone who has taken basic science classes,

we know that true scientific research starts

with no pre-conceived idea of an outcome.

A scientist needs to be non-biased to achieve true results.

oops.

That's not what happened with all this 'dating' of our history.

I LOVE God's sense of humor.

How He must chuckle when He reveals an archeologist's site,

and there is proof that Darwin got it all wrong!!

We can be so silly.

And so stubborn.

The South American natives had many names for this

water lily.

One of them is "Yrupe", which literally means

water platter.

A giant water lily, victorian amazonica, at Kew.

When the bushmen collected and opened the fruit of the water lily, it broke open with a cluster of hard, shiny seeds,

and a soft mealy flesh surrounding them within.

They called the seeds (which are considered a great delicacy)

water corn, or water maize.

a blue water lily

In the language of flowers,

Water Lily

means Eloquence

and

Purity of heart.

c.1902

Other plants in the Water Lily Family

Nymphaeaceae

(and no, don't ask be how to pronounce it!)

include Buttercups and Magnolias

and the Lotus Blossom.

"What loved little islands,

          twice seen in their lakes,

Can the wild water-lily restore."

- Thomas Campbell

"When you have only two pennies left in the world,

Buy a loaf of bread with one,

and a lily with the other."

- Chinese proverb

painting by a Chinese artist

Water lily flowers can be up to 15 inches wide,

opened at dusk,remain open all the night

and close after sunrise.

Grumpy: "A fine bunch of water lilies you turned out to be.

I'd like to see anybody make me wash,

if I didn't wanna."

- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, c.1937

"The slender water-lily

    Peeps dreamingly out of the lake;

         The moon, oppress'd with love's sorrow,

              Looks tenderly down for her sake."

by Heinrich Heine, Book of Songs-New Spring

The fragrance of a water lily

is somewhat like that of crushed pineapple.

'waterlilies' by Claude Monet, 1916

I just can't have a blog about water lilies

without mentioning Monet's series of

water lily paintings.

There are many.

Claude Monet, 83 years old, after his cataract surgery

c.1918

As someone who has had cataracts myself,

I find this very interesting in viewing Monet's work.

It is noted that his eyesight had been deteriorating for a long time.

Yes, he was considered the Founder of Impressionist Painting.

Yet,

his paintings look very much

like what 'I saw' when my cataracts were so bad.

'water lilies' by Claude Monet, 1906

'Nympheas' by Claude Monet, c.1914 - 1917

Just having fun speculation- draw your own conclusions.

This is definitely NOT an art history class!!

purple water lilies

"Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,

And slips into the bosom of the lake;

So fold thyself, my dearest thou, and slip

Into my bosom, and be lost in me."

Lord Alfred Tennyson, 'The Princess'

"The knowledge of the world

can only to be acquired

in the world,

and not in a closet."

- Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield

lived 1694 - 1773

I bet he hated his parents when he went to school,

and had to fill out all those papers with his name!

Well, I think that covers water lilies pretty well!

I hope you enjoyed this little piece from the complex picture of

The Language of Flowers,

and

Flowers of the Month.

flower mandala

water lilies

'The Water Lily Pond 4' by Claude Monet

inkspired

http://www.inkspired.etsy.com/

http://www.inkspiredmusings.blogspot.com/

dominoes@myinkspired.com

The Language of Flowers - Pansy

Today is a bright and sunny day here in the Rocky Mountain foothills.

This always improves my mood.

A Good Day to you!

Today I would love to share some pansies with you.

I realize I have done a previous post on pansies, so today will be a bit different.

those are a 5lb. bag of chocolates, sold on e-bay by With Love

I would save every pansy foil!

c.1922

PANSY

In the language of flowers, a pansy means

Loving Thoughts

these are pansies from my garden, in early spring when other things are just thinking 'bout poking leaves above ground:

except the weeds that is!

for sale by Andreas Silicone on Amazon

You can find these for sale on Amazon, along with a bevy of other flower seeds.

Here is the official flower fairies of Mary Cecily Barker site:

http://www.flowerfairies.com/US_version/home.html

Martha Stewart has an interesting punch:

Liana has a few lovely dresses

 that remind me of the different colors that pansies come in:

Both of Liana's dolls here fit all the dresses.  Yippee!

Here is such a simple home decorating project.
Talk about budget!!!

Home Decorating Budget Project:



pansies in jars by nuevosantander.com/fields-pansies

This is a just a lovely water color.

But the idea is wonderful for home decorating as well.

Collect clean glass bottles.

                  Some ideas for empty bottles -

Soy Sauce

flavored vinegars

mushroom jars

flavoring extract bottles

soda in a bottle

really, anything you can find to recycle!

A variety of heights, shapes, sizes is what you are looking for.

Purchase from the store, or wander in your garden. Pick flowers with as long stems as you can get.

Place in bottles/jars with water.

What about white flowers with colored water?

tip:   Did you know to remove all leaves below water level? This will help keep your water clean and your flowers fresher.

How about a pretty teacup, or a grouping of 3 or 5 teacups?

These shorter vessels work terrific for short stemmed flowers.

okay, this one is violas, but it still matches the theme!

c.1909

A coloring page and colored page from Dover:

a sweet pansy fairy, unknown artist

More coloring fun:

How about an Exotic Flower Fairy from Dover?

Here is a page from the book:

'Fanciful Paper'

I'm a bit rushed today (mom-in-law and dad-in-law from CA, coming any minute.)

I will get the book id and complete name for you tommorrow, plus a photo and amazon purchase info.

See comments below for the link to purchase
'Fanciful Paper Projects'

Here are more fairy patterns for you to make a Flower Fairy yourself:

You can find this, plus directions, plus many more FREE patterns at:

http://dollmakersjourney.com/flora.html

You can sew this, hand sew it, felt it, cut from paper, cut from recycled junk mail - lots and lots of ideas for this basic pattern!

That's it for today!

Tomorrow we will be having fun with edible flowers and more recipes and crafts to do with Pansies, and other flowers!

inkspired

http://www.inkspired.etsy.com/

dominoes@myinkspired.com